Aerosol-soot in the air caused by the asteroid led the mass extinction of life 66 million years ago

ANTARCTICA: Antarctic Mission Finds 71 Million Year Old Fossils February and March 20168:25

A team of 12 scientists uncovered more than a tonne of fossils and dinosaur remains aged between 67 and 71-million-years-old during an expedition to the James Ross Island area of Antarctica in February and March 2016. “We did find a lot of marine reptile remains, so things like plesiosaurs and mosasaurs – a type of marine lizard made famous by the recent film Jurassic World”, said palaeontologist Dr Steve Salisbury. The team, which included scientists from the US, Australia and South Africa, travelled to Antarctica via South America, sailing to the Antarctic Peninsula before using helicopters and inflatable boats to get through the sea ice to the shore. They camped for almost five weeks on Vega Island, hiking mountainous terrain for about five kilometres each way to reach their main field site on Sandwich Bluff. The fossils were transported to Chile and will eventually be shipped to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History for further study. See more from the University of Queensland. More photos are available here. Credit: Steve Salisbury/The University of Queensland

The team, led by Tohoku University Professor Kunio Kaiho, conducted the study by examining earth samples from Haiti and Spain — somewhere close to the crater of the asteroid, also known as the Chicxulub impactor, and somewhere far.

Aerosol-soot in the air caused by the asteroid led to major climate changes which in turn led to the mass extinction.Source:Supplied

They discovered that both samples of the sedimentary organic molecules contained “combusted organic molecules showing high energy”.

This is what they believed to be the soot.

The researchers then calculated the amount of soot in the stratosphere to estimate the global climate changes caused by the “strong, light absorbing aerosol”.

Earlier scientific theories proposed that dust from the asteroid impact had blocked the sun and caused the mass extinction.

But Prof Kaiho’s team disagree, having said it’s unlikely the dust could have lingered in the air long enough to cause extinction.

“If this had occurred, crocodilians and various other animals would have also gone extinct,” Prof Kaiho’s team said.

Earlier scientific theories proposed that dust from the asteroid impact had blocked the sun and caused the mass extinction.Source:Supplied

According to the new hypothesis, when the asteroid struck the oil-rich area of Chicxulub in the Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico, a significant amount of soot was released and spread globally, causing a long period of darkness.

This then caused “colder climates at mid-high latitudes, and drought with milder cooling at low latitudes on land … in turn led to the cessation of photosynthesis in oceans in the first two years, followed by surface-water cooling in oceans in subsequent years”, Kaiho’s team reported.

The rapid pace of these climate changes are what the researchers are saying explains the extinction of dinosaurs but the survival of 90 per cent of the ocean life in the Cretaceous period.

Prof Kaiho’s team also explained that other creatures may have survived the aftermath of the asteroid by hiding themselves underground.

And as for sea creatures — there was a significant change to the temperature of the surface of the water, but deep down, there was very little change so most underwater animals survived.